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Wilderness Survival
Wilderness Survival
The BSA has a long tradition of teaching privative survival techniques. Learning these basic skills brings a true meaning to the Scout Motto "Be Prepared".
Sometimes things don't go as planned and unexpected weather conditions, washed out roads, forest fires and injuries can easily extend a day outing into something much longer and more challenging. Being able to deal with the unexpected night out in the wilderness is life or death skill. Our Adult Leadership has professional training in Wilderness Survival and share this knowledge and skill set with everyone in our troop.
Wilderness Survival Topics
Wilderness Survival Topics
We cover many topics in Wilderness Survival Training
Pshycology of survival
Priorities of Survival
Survival Gear
Advanced Knife Skills
The Forest of Allies - Wilderness Resources
Wilderness First-Aid
Survival Shelters
Advanced Fire Making
Water procurement and treatment
Signaling
Navigation and Tracking
Wilderness Food
BowDrill Fire Set
Fire
Fire
Fire is one of the most important priorities of survival and one of the more challenging skills to master. We teach multiple techniques so our scouts are better prepared to build fires in multiple conditions with various resources that might be available.
Fire building is also one of the most enjoyable skills to work on for Scouts and Adults alike.
Friction Firestarting has been a Scouting skill since the beginning of Scouting. It takes persistence and focus to master. It takes a lot of practice to start your first fire using this family of techniques, but it is so satisfying and worth the effort once you make your first fire.
Understanding how to start a fire with friction greatly increases your understanding of how to start and maintain any other type of fire in the wilderness.
Smoke from Bow Drill Ember
Blown into:
FIRE!
FIRE!
Morakniv Companion used for Feather Stick and making Kindling
Knife Skills
Knife Skills
It is important to know how to use and care for your knife safely. Wilderness Survival Training include advanced Bushcraft Knife use. This includes:
Processing fatwood and bark into tinder
Feathering (wood shavings and feathers sticks)
Batoning (splitting wood with baton)
Beaver chewing (cutting down trees and large branches)
Making fire boards and tools for friction fires
Stone on knife fire starting
Wilderness knife sharpening
Knife upgrades
Scout-Made Lean-To Survival Shelter
Survival Shelters
Survival Shelters
One of the first priorities of Wilderness Survival is to set up a Shelter. Our instructor teach several methods of creating a shelters out of natural materials. It is up to Scouts to use those skills with a bit of creativity to make their survial home away from home.
Lean-To Survival Shelter
Debris Hut
Part of this world is covered in snow part or all of the year. Learning how to construct different types of snow shelters will enhance your ability to survive in cold weather environments.
Scout-Made Snow Shelter
Wilderness First Aid
Wilderness First Aid
The First Aid we teach in for the First Aid Merit Badge is based on caring for injured people where advanced medical care is only a phone call and ambulance ride away. In the Wilderness, phones often don't work and if they did an ambulance or rescue team is going to take hours or even days to get to you. We discuss advanced Wilderness First-Aid in our Council program. All Adults on outings and all youth 14 and older are highly encouraged to attend. Troop 60 teaches our council program so we focus a lot on these skills during training and on outings.
Wilderness Survival Merit Badge
Wilderness Survival Merit Badge
Why not get credit for doing Wilderness Survival Training?
January, 2018 Requirements for the Wilderness Survival merit badge:
Do the following:
Explain to your counselor the hazards you are most likely to encounter while participating in wilderness survival activities, and what you should do to anticipate, help prevent, mitigate, or lessen these hazards.
Show that you know first aid for and how to prevent injuries or illnesses likely to occur in backcountry settings, including hypothermia, heat reactions, frostbite, dehydration, blisters, insect stings, tick bites, and snakebites.
From memory, list the seven priorities for survival in a backcountry or wilderness location. Explain the importance of each one with your counselor.
Describe ways to avoid panic and maintain a high level of morale when lost, and explain why this is important.
Describe the steps you would take to survive in the following exposure conditions:
Cold and snowy
Wet
Hot and dry
Windy
At or on the water
Put together a personal survival kit and be able to explain how each item in it could be useful.
Using three different methods (other than matches), build and light three fires.
Do the following:
Show five different ways to attract attention when lost.
Demonstrate how to use a signal mirror.
Describe from memory five ground-to-air signals and tell what they mean.
Improvise a natural shelter. For the purpose of this demonstration, use techniques that have little negative impact on the environment. Spend a night in your shelter.
Explain how to protect yourself from insects, reptiles, bears, and other animals of the local region.
Demonstrate three ways to treat water found in the outdoors to prepare it for drinking.
Show that you know the proper clothing to wear while in the outdoors during extremely hot and cold weather and during wet conditions.
Explain why it usually is not wise to eat edible wild plants or wildlife in a wilderness survival situation.
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